Men and women in religious congregations are traditionally spoken of as occupying a state. By this we mean a permanent status to which they are tied for some fixed period, usually for life. It is by the three vows of religion that they are established in this state. And so the vows tend to be thought of absolutely as what make religious what they are. There is a danger in this way of thinking of them, as if they were something in their own right, for their own sakes. It can be forgotten that the vows are only a means to an end, and have always to do with what is vowed. One comes on queerly used distinctions between, for example, the vow and the virtue of obedience, as if the thing known as religious obedience under vow was something quite different from the virtue of obedience.

It was our Lord himself who taught us that it is holy to be poor and chaste and obedient. But even as he spoke, and indeed for many years before his time, other Jews had already realized this independently, and had been striving in their own ways to practise these very virtues. The descriptions of the sect known as the Essenes in the records of Josephus and Pliny the Younger, and especially the new discoveries at Qumran, all bear striking witness to this fact. Where then did the idea originate that man can enter into closer union with God through poverty, chastity, and obedience? Clearly it was in the Old Testament, the common source on which our Lord and the Essenes both drew. And when we attempt to trace the idea back to its Old Testament roots, the trail leads us not, as we might have expected, to the temple, or to the altar, nor even, in the last analysis, to the vows of the Nazirites, but beyond this still further back to the remote nomadic past of ancient Israel, to what was probably one of the oldest of her traditions, the tradition of the Holy War.

There is a department of theology known as ‘spiritual theology’ or ‘ascetical and mystical theology', or from a more historical standpoint ‘history of spirituality'. (The word ‘spirituality’ is unwelcome in English, but corresponds to, the perfectly acceptable ‘spiritualité’ in French.) This ‘discipline’ or subject within a course of theology is, from an academic point of view, something of a Cinderella among the subjects in which the clergy are trained, and indeed in the 1930s the Angelicurn in Rome claimed to be almost uniquely advanced in possessing a chair of historia spiritualitatis, the chair being first occupied by Père Paul Philippe, O.P., who subsequently became Commissary of the Holy Office (the modern title of the Inquisitor General). But the subject as an historical discipline was gaining recognition at that time, and the great Dictionnaire de Spiritualité was begun by Père Marcel Viller, S.J., in 1937 as a counterpart to the great Dictionnaires in other areas of theology.

The sacrament of order is much less familiar to most people than the sacraments which have so far been considered. Every Catholic has been baptized, confirmed, has gone to confession; many are married or have assisted at a marriage; very few have taken part in an ordination. The priesthood is often falsely thought of as a special privileged state, remote from the Catholic community at large, and naturally there is little interest in the sacrament by which priests are made. We must therefore begin by getting an idea of the meaning of priesthood in relation to the whole Christian people.

A priest is a man who offers sacrifice to God. In the Old Testament we find careful regulations for the offering of ritual sacrifices of every kind by the official priests.

I. THE SACRAMENTS

THE principal practices which lead to perfection are the sacraments when we approach them with the necessary preparation; yet, curiously enough, this is the very truth which is most neglected. The sacraments give graces which result in the production within us of the effects proper to them: confession brings great purity of heart, Holy Communion close union with God and spiritual fervour in all our actions…. The more you approach the sacraments, the more graces you will receive to share in their effects. But the effects of these sacraments, namely purity of heart and spiritual fervour, are themselves the best preparation we can make to receive them.

A soul which before Holy Communion was in darkness, weak and languishing, but after it becomes enlightened, fervent and strong cannot doubt of the fruit of its communion, because the sacraments’ effect is to give their proper sacramental grace Hence after a good confession the soul receives much light on its interor dispositions, humble and loving contrition, and peace of a quiet conscience.